A graphic protest took place Monday at a Charlottesville fast food restaurant.

A member of the animal rights group PETA dressed as Ronald McDonald. He hung up-side down at the McDonald’s restaurant with his throat cut by a giant chicken under a banner reading McDonald’s cuts live animals’ throats.

McDonald’s says it slaughters all of its chickens in as humane a manner as possible.

PETA says it is protesting against the suffering McDonald’s inflicts on the birds.

PETA Protester Ashley Byrne says, “PETA’s chicken is getting her revenge today against Ronald McDonald for representing a company that tortures chickens in ways that would warrant felony cruelty charges if dogs or cats were the victims.”

PETA representatives called police when a man protested their protest by eating a chicken sandwich he just bought from McDonald’s. He left before police arrived.

Protest at VA Fast Food Restaurant on WHSV

Not much to say about this, except that people in this area have a great sense of humour about PETA. Anything they do is just a big joke, and locals always seem to invent fun ways to get back at them. I’m only sorry I missed this, I would’ve joined that guy in having a chicken sandwich.

I don’t doubt that residents of other areas have the same knack for making PETA protests look about as credible as a college frat party, but I hear about it the most whenever they come around here.

As any vehicle owner knows, an integral part of owning a vehicle is getting hit with a steady stream of fees and taxes just for the privilege of having personal transportation. And, fortunately, most of these expenses make at least some sense. But, here in Harrisonburg, VA, there’s one mandatory fee that really bothers me: city tax stickers.

First, a bit of introduction to Virginia taxes, for those who don’t live here. In Virginia, the tax code allows cities, counties, and some towns to collect a personal property tax on motor vehicles, trailers, boats, and other assorted vehicles. And, since it’s an easy revenue stream, the vast majority of counties and independant cities in the state collect this tax (whether or not it’s fair is debatable, but Virginia is one of the cheapest states to own a vehicle in without figuring this tax into the equation). So, since this is handled separately from any other vehicle-related fees, localities need an easy way to see which vehicles have been paid for. The traditional method of doing this is with city stickers.

Now, logically, one would assume that when the tax is paid, the taxpayer receives a sticker to replace their old one. And, indeed, this is how most localities that use city stickers implement them. However, Harrisonburg does things differently, running the city stickers almost like their own vehicle registration system. Paying the personal property tax is typically done in November or December, but the city stickers aren’t replaced until March. And, the part that really irritates me is that in addition to the personal property tax, the city charges almost thirty dollars just for the sticker! That’s almost as much as license plates/registration in this state. The only reason for the sticker is to avoid getting pulled over/ticketted for not having one within the city. That’s it! It’s completely arbitrary, and the fee keeps going up (used to be $15, and it may have even been less before that). Considering how many people live in this city, I find it impossible to believe that the stickers themselves and the administration overhead to sell them costs anywhere close to that.

Unfortunately, without state-level legislation to ban this ridiculous practice, it’s unlikely to change. It’s a per-vehicle fee that’s completely arbitrary, and nearly impossible to avoid if you have a vehicle registered in this city, so they have no real incentive to stop doing it. Virginia’s DMV already has provisions in place to link local personal property tax databases to the state registration system, so a person can’t renew their license plates without paying personal property tax, and they no longer have to sell/distribute and enforce the stickers. Many areas have taken advantage of this, but unless Virginia makes this the standard practice state-wide (which I would readily support), I guarantee that Harrisonburg will one of the last cities to switch to it, if they ever do.

Ever since I started this blog, posts related to local news stories and events have always been prominently featured here. Since I currently live in Harrisonburg, VA, my local-interest posts have focused on the Shenandoah Valley.

However, a large portion of you don’t live here, and while I try to make my posts as universally interesting as possible, there’s a limit to how much one can really care about news that doesn’t happen where they live. Since I have a lot of friends (and at least a few readers) in/near Pittsburgh, PA, and I spend a lot of time there (a long weekend at least once a month), it’s the next logical choice to look for material.

I didn’t really have any local readers in Harrisonburg until very recently (thanks Harrisonburg Blogs), and in light of some responses I’ve received to local posts, I’m a little curious as to where my readers are. So, I made a poll, asking which location(s) you’re interested in seeing local-interest posts from. I appreciate any and all votes, even if they’re for “Neither”, and you don’t even have to login to vote.

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Whatever the outcome of this poll, I’m not going to stop writing about Harrisonburg news (unless I move), or stop writing about Pittsburgh news (unless interesting things stop happening there), this is for my own curiousity. If anything, this will help me decide what sort of priority to put on each city’s news sources when looking for material. And, local news posts are never going to make up the majority of my posts here, that’s just boring, and doesn’t really suit the original purpose of this blog.

BELLEVUE, Pa. — A local community will remain a dry town until at least 2011.

The town of Bellevue fell short of the required number of signatures needed to place a referendum question regarding community alcohol sales on the spring primary ballot.

The question would have asked residents if they wanted to permit restaurants and bars to sell beer, wine and liquor by the drink.

Since the end of Prohibition in 1933, Bellevue has not allowed businesses to sell alcohol by the drink.

Organizers of the referendum effort had hoped to generate more business by increasing foot traffic through town.

The town has one beer distributor.

Local Community Dry Since Prohibition To Remain Dry on WPXI

Am I the only one who thought that towns like this only existed in the realms of urban legend and weird country songs? And in Pittsburgh, no less? I mean, I’d expect to find this sort of thing in places like Georgia, or in Virginia, but Pittsburgh? The city as a whole really isn’t very conservative or religious, and beer is huge there.

I did a bit of research, and Pittsburgh-area bloggers have written much more about this than I could hope to. “Live Mike“, who appears to live in Bellevue, has a very lengthy article against the referendum (among other local ordinance changes). Three of them, in fact. In his first post, he goes over the history of alcohol prohibition in the town. His second post touches on the more tangible effects of the passage of this referendum, and brings up a very good point; Bellevue is quite tiny, and close to downtown, so there are plenty of bars around its perimeter. And, his third post speculates on the effects of the referendum’s passage. Overall, a very well-written series, regardless of your position on the matter.

And, while Live Mike and I would probably hate each other if we actually had a conversation, I actually support his position on this. Sort of. I think it’s kinda silly to outlaw alcohol anywhere, and I think the temperance movement was and is a ridiculous waste of time. But, I’m also a fan of the right for communities to preserve their culture however they see fit, as long as they’re not violating any human rights in the process. The US is too big for nationwide blue laws, and almost all states too big for such laws as well. But, cities and towns (and counties, in some cases) are a nice size for blue laws to work well, if supported by the majority of residents, because cultural differences rarely follow state lines. Laws that make sense in Southern California would rarely make sense in rural Virginia, and some of our local ordinances and state laws would cause riots out there.

So, if the majority of Bellevue residents (which is what it sounds like the situation is) want to keep this law on the books, I hope that no one interferes with their right to continue that tradition (like how the Mormon church and dozens of outside groups interfered in Californians’ right to define marriage how they wanted to). Considering that the town’s been “dry” since the 1800s, I doubt that anyone moving there or currently living there would be caught off-guard by the town’s lack of bars. And, since it’s not exactly an isolated area, it might be better for the supporters of this referendum to relocate, or not move there in the first place. I know I wouldn’t want to live there (I don’t drink, but I sense major morality differences between myself and the residents of Bellevue), but if some people do, more power to ‘em.

And, for those who are curious, I couldn’t seem to find any blog posts supporting the referendum.

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Once again, Harrisonburg utterly fails at city planning. This is getting really old.

In an effort to turn every square foot of undeveloped land into high-density townhouses/apartments, the city let a developer pretty much go nuts with a section of land that isn’t very easy to get to. The area grew up, lots of people moved in, and…oh look, a road that most residents didn’t know we had now has too much traffic on it. Funny how that works, considering that the exact same thing happened with the Harrisonburg Crossing shopping center (”uh, why do we have constant gridlock on the only road that leads to our new shopping center?”).

So, they want to extend the road (which is currently a dead-end) and connect it to a major road a block away. Fine, whatever, this happens all the time. Except, instead of determining in advance where the road should go and routing it properly, they waited until the last minute, and decided that the only way it could connect is by running it right through someone’s house. Oh, and it’s among the oldest houses in the area.

You’d think that historical preservation would be a high priority for region obsessed with the “War of Northern Aggression”, but in this case, the city appears to not care. Nice.

The claim that “improved fire department access” is a reason for doing this is particularly amusing. There’s a small fire department on the road they want to extend, and they presumably want to make it easier for them to get to apartments along the road they want to connect to. Except, they don’t really have that much trouble with that now. It only adds an extra half-block to take the current route instead of the proposed route, and while there is a bad intersection involved, it’s only bad because of traffic on those roads. The visibility is pretty awesome, and if you’re in a big loud truck with spinny red lights, it’s a breeze to get through. Add a well-adjusted traffic light with an Opticom sensor to it, and you’ll not only make it a safer intersection for everyone, but you create a prioritized route for fire trucks. I fail to see how making a new intersection, which is guaranteed to have poor visibility due to the surrounding area, is a superior idea in that regard.

I used to really like Harrisonburg, but it continually does everything wrong when it comes to running a city. They let developers run wild in the name of growth, without any consideration for what will happen, and it’s getting worse every year. I don’t even want to think about the gigantic new downtown apartment complex with no parking areas is going to do to that part of town. Combined with everything else, I’ve pretty much stopped caring about Harrisonburg as a city, and I don’t plan to make this my home any longer than I have to.

As members of St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish gathered for a church meeting Monday night, there is an inner struggle weighing heavy on their hearts and minds. “I feel very sad after so many years being in this church and having it closed,” said Connie Phillip, of St. Anne’s parish.

Because of declining attendance at Sunday Mass, parish officials have proposed closing St. Anne’s, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic Churches and maintain St. Michael’s in Munhall as the parish church building. “The other factor, and it’s a big one, is that financially the church has not been able to have the funds come in to take care of the buildings,” said Father Jim Young of St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish.

Parishioners told Channel 11 News that by closing the churches the parish administration is not fulfilling all members’ needs. “I just think the diocese has no sense of history. St. Mary Magdalene has been here for 100 plus years. I think there’s room for two churches, not one,” said Vincent Rodgers, of St. Mary Magdalene Church.

The plan still needs to be presented to Bishop David Zubik, and he will have the final say on whether to close the churches.

Pittsburgh Diocese Considering Closing Churches on WPXI

I’ve gotten tired of Harrisonburg local news, and Pittsburgh is my second home at this point, so I’ve decided to post about interesting articles from there. As with my Harrisonburg-interest posts, I plan to try to keep these as universally-interesting as possible, because what few readers I have come from all over the country (and several in other countries).

Anyway, I thought this story was very interesting. We hear about businesses and individuals suffering from the economy non-stop (thanks, American media, we get the message), but churches and charities are often overlooked. I think I’ve heard maybe one news story about charities suffering from the economic downturn in the last year, and it was a pretty brief story, consisting of “yep, we’ve seen a reduction in donations”. This article is the first I’ve heard of a church considering closing its doors due to financial issues since news stations started running non-stop “the economy sucks!” stories.

Admittedly, I have a hard time feeling much sympathy for a Catholic parish that owns that many churches, especially in Pittsburgh, where Catholicism is very strong, but it still sucks that they can’t afford to maintain their buildings and have to consider closing them. Churches have traditionally been the last refuge of the destitute, the one place people could turn to for guidance and assistance when no one else could help them. So, it’s a little sad to see a church, any church, having these sorts of problems at a time when so many people are counting on churches to be stronger than ever.

On the other hand, this would be a great opportunity for Church Brew Works to open a second location. Highly recommended if you’re in the area, by the way; between the gourmet food, exquisite beer (from what I’m told), and tastefully blasphemous atmosphere, I’d say it’s a must-see for anyone who travels through Pittsburgh.

For the last several months, I’ve attempted to stick to a very stable, predictable update cycle. This is my preferred way of running this, having spent most of my internet-based life manually visiting sites like this for updates. Unfortunately, it sometimes causes my posts about current events to be a bit out of date by the time they’re posted.

The alternative to this would be to post current-events articles immediately as I write them (or, at least, the same day), like most other blogs seem to do. And, I should note that regardless of the outcome of this poll, I won’t be posting on weekends. The vast majority of users who read my blog do so on weekdays, so with the exception of travel notifications, I’ll continue to only post Monday through Friday.

So, I’d like y’all to vote on this, and let me know what you think. It’s quick and easy, you don’t even have to login or anything. Would you rather see things continue unchanged, with stable posting three times a week, or would you rather see a more flexible posting schedule, with time-sensitive material posted more quickly?

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Continuing the trend of local news that ticks me off or disappoints me, my favourite music store is closing its doors at the end of this month. Plan 9 is a regional chain that, despite how rarely I actually shop for CDs, was always enjoyable to visit. They have a suprisingly good selection of mainstream stuff, in addition to being the central resource for local bands, and with the unmatched variety of the used section, I could always spend hours there looking for treasures.

The chain isn’t completely going out of business, thankfully, but all of the locations except Richmond and Charlottesville are closing down.

Really makes me wonder if something else will open up, or if Harrisonburg will continue the trend of cramming in more generic nationwide chains at the expense of local flavour (and then whining when they can’t keep businesses in their precious downtown). This city is already as soul-less as a midwestern strip mall, it really doesn’t need to get any worse. I honestly have a hard time telling the difference between Harrisonburg and Pittsburgh’s fringe suburbs anymore, it’s just so bland around here.

In my last post about VDOT, I railed the agency for cutting back pretty much all rural services and rest areas because of a budget screw-up that left them billions of dollars short of what they needed/expected. I wasn’t able to actually find any information on why they screwed up their budget, but admittedly, I didn’t look very hard.

The day that my rant was published, I came across this local news article, where a local state senator (who I loathe) called out VDOT for wastefully spending money on YouTube videos. I’m not usually one to side with Republicans, especially racist blowhards like Obenshain, but I have to say that this is a ridiculous investment for any government agency. I mean, it’s the Department of Transportation, why the heck do they need to make promotional videos? Half of them aren’t even useful, it’s just worthless fluff from an agency that really doesn’t need PR campaigns unless they royally screw something up.

Naturally, I had to check out VDOT’s YouTube Channel, and it’s rather entertaining just to see the lame tripe our tax dollars are supporting. I think this one is my favourite, just from the sillyness. Do they have salaried full-time employees sitting around with nothing better to do?

I think the best part is that, a few hours after the aforementioned news article ran, they disabled comments on this video.

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Thanks to a state budget screw-up, Virginia is planning to close a ton of rest areas on its interstate highways to save money, including all but two along Interstate 81, the northern and southern welcome centers. Which means that there’ll be over 320 miles of I-81 with no guaranteed areas to stop for snacks, drinks, bathrooms, or just to get out and stretch.

Of course, there are gas stations and such along the way, but there are parts of the state that are so desolate that there’s pretty much nothing. And, with the exception of the semi-major cities along the way (Winchester, Harrisonburg, Roanoke, and Bristol), everything along I-81 closes around 10pm, leaving late-night travellers with, well, nothing. If people stop along the road or on exit ramps, or at closed gas stations, any cops who come by tell them to leave, not to mention the safety concerns of being in the middle of nowhere with no one around.

This isn’t the only brain-dead idea VDOT is implementing to save money. They’re also planning to cut back on snow removal, particularly in rural areas. Considering how bad Virginia sucks at snow removal compared to other nearby states (like Maryland or Pennsylvania; even West Virginia does a better job on major roads), I really don’t want to see it get worse.

All of this is the result of a $2.6 billion projected shortfall over the next six years. How the heck can any government agency not see that big of a deficit coming with at least a little advance notice? To give an idea of the scale of this shortfall, the above-mentioned rest area closings (25 total state-wide) would save $12 million per year, or $72 million over the six-year projected deficit. That makes up about 2.7% of their savings goal.

I haven’t been able to find information on how this happened (maybe they were counting on revenues from those wonderful “remedial fees“?), but I’m not looking forward to seeing Virginia’s roads falling into this sort of disrepair. I’m sure the roads in NoVA won’t suffer, there’s too much traffic to cut back on much there, but that means that all of us rural residents will get “deprioritized” even more.